


Fabled

by rymyanna



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Magic, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:42:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26526913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rymyanna/pseuds/rymyanna
Summary: Callum messes up a spell and meets Aaravos. Written for the Aaravos fanzine Midnight Star.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 36





	Fabled

**Author's Note:**

> Since we're finally allowed to post these, here's what I wrote for the Aaravos zine!

Thinking back, Callum might have messed up the trigger words. It was an easy conclusion to draw; he’d seen the spell cast in passing a couple days ago and hadn’t thought much of it. Sure, it had sounded complicated and like he wasn’t advanced enough to cast it, but to his defence he had really wanted to. Studying magic was hard with the finite resources he had; he had to take every scrap of information and run with it.

Rayla wouldn’t agree. She’d think that he was being dumb and reckless. She’d be right, but the last time he had been dumb and reckless, he had connected to the Sky arcanum. Sometimes being dumb was the smartest thing to do.

When he uttered the trigger words for his failed spell, he wasn’t thinking about making a stupid decision, he was being smart in reverse. Getting all the knowledge he could, making a mistake into a learning experience, and all that.

He knew something was off immediately. The magic's glow was too bright, he barely got all the words out before the light engulfed him and knocked him out. The trees around him faded.

The light around him was strange once he regained consciousness. He couldn't see a sun, it was as though the air around him was the light source. Sitting up, he could make out the outlines of buildings and columns in the distance. They were surrounded by the same mist that whirled around him. He stood up.

Turning to look around before picking a direction, he took a couple cautious steps. He didn’t bother calling out in this new location; he could be in enemy territory for all he knew. Callum walked, trying to see any landmarks or signs of life. The buildings in the distance stayed distant, like they were getting farther away as he tried to get closer.

Then he saw something that broke the monotonous landscape.

A figure approached.

Callum, unsure of what he’d gotten himself into, watched, wary. He was starting to make out a general shape of a robed person with horns. Having met more elves that didn’t want to harm him than ones who did, he stayed where he was and waited. The cube in his bag was lighting up, as though the Primal Sources were glowing in a pattern. Maybe his surroundings messed with the magic in cube. He was too focussed on the approaching elf to check.

Once close enough to see, the elf was very tall and blue. The skin color was a bit of a shock, along with the stars twinkling on it, but the height Callum thought might just be an elf thing. Rayla was taller than him. The mystery elf looked about as surprised to see him as Callum was to see the elf.

“A child,” the stranger said, trailing off. His voice was deep but he didn’t sound hostile, just shocked. “How are you here?”

“Uh,” Callum replied. “I don’t know?” He felt like he was even less knowledgeable now than he had been a moment ago. “I guess the spell I was trying backfired, somehow.” The circumstances were surreal enough that speaking to an unknown elf was the least of his worries.

The elf narrowed his eyes in thought. Callum felt awkward.

Instead of standing there under scrutiny, he started walking again. He needed to find something to lead him back; to the forest, to Rayla. He thought about trying the spell again, but what were the chances that he’d mess it up just right to undo whatever he had done? If it looked like there was no other option, he’d try. Until then, he dragged his feet through the mist, causing tiny puffs of it to rise up. He gained a walking companion after a while and Callum could feel eyes on him.

“So, uh, do you live here?” Callum asked, so they wouldn’t be walking in silence. The scenery never changed and there were no other sounds. The whole thing was starting to feel strange, like he wasn’t supposed to be there. “Where is here?”

“I’m just passing through. Much like you, I imagine,” he answered one of the questions.

“I sure hope so.” Who’d want to stay any amount of time? The circumstances of him getting there were interesting, there was that, Callum thought.

He remembered the cube, and how it had reacted. It was a key, supposedly. When he pulled it out of his bag, it had settled on the Star arcanum. He could’ve guessed the elf was connected to the Stars just by looking at him. It was pretty cool; he hadn’t seen Star creatures before and even though he was sketchy on whether or not this was real, meeting one was still a unique opportunity.

The cube got a reaction. For a moment it looked like the elf was about to reach out for it, but then he pulled his hand back. “How did you come by it?” he asked.

“Um, my dad gave it to me.” It felt foreign to call King Harrow that but it’d be even more weird to call him by his title. “He told me it’s called the Key of Aaravos and that it belonged to a powerful mage.”

The elf smiled. It was a little eerie but not outright malicious. “I see,” he said.

Even without the cube and its weird malfunction, it was obvious to Callum that this one was magic. He wasn’t sure how he knew, call it a hunch. “Magic, right? That’s pretty neat,” he tried to start a conversation again. The silence was oppressive and maybe he could learn something. It wasn’t often that he got to talk to another mage.

“Indeed it is,” the strange star man agreed, amused, judging by the way his haunting eyes crinkled. “Tell me more about what you were doing before you got here.”

“Like I said, a spell must have gone wrong,” Callum reiterated, looking off into the distance rather than at the other. “I uh, didn’t articulate well enough.”

The elf raised an eyebrow, “So you were doing magic? What kind?”

“Uh, Sky?” He wasn’t sure if this elf mage would just be yet another one who’d tell him that humans having real magic was a foolish pipedream. A curious head tilt and another smile were the only clues as to what his magical acquaintance was thinking.

“Can I see it?” he held out a star speckled hand like he was expecting Callum to just give it to him, and after a much shorter hesitant pause than he would have liked, Callum handed the cube over. For a moment, the cube flashed like it was malfunctioning and then settled on Star again. The elf held it out towards Callum and it switched to Sky. “Interesting.”

“Yes, I’m a human that can do magic,” Callum said, rolling his eyes. It wasn’t a rejection but that was sure to come. “I can show you,” he offered.

More focussed on the key, his fellow mage replied, “Perhaps later.”

No comment on Callum’s general human nature. That was a first. It made him feel more at ease. He thought about how even Rayla had been sceptical at first. She trusted him more, and he knew a lot of her comments were either a defense mechanism or gentle teasing. He didn’t notice how long he had been silent, thinking about Rayla. It would be easier to figure out what to do was she here.

“What is her name?” the elf walking by him asked, startling him out of his thoughts.

“What’s it to you?” he asked, glancing around, looking for an exit from the conversation. There wasn’t one. There was nothing. “I mean, who?” Did his feelings show on his face?

Smug and amused, the elf shrugged, “Just making conversation.”

“Well, I’d rather not talk about it with you, thanks.”

“You’re fond of her.”

“Yeah, she’s great,” he admitted, looking away with a small smile. “I never thought I’d meet someone like her.” His eyes widened when he realized how that sounded, and that he was entertaining the conversation after all. He looked over at his mystery companion, “I don’t mean that like, because she’s an elf, or I do, but only because I’d never met one before her and all the stories I heard were about them trying to kill us and drink our blood, so.” He laughed awkwardly. “I just mean that she’s so amazing and, and great.”

The reaction he got was a raised eyebrow, “Why would elves drink your blood?”

“I don’t know!” Callum admitted, “That’s just what I was told, but I know now that, that is not the case.”

“Yes,” the elf didn’t look impressed. “Would you say that this relationship has improved your quality of life?”

What a strange question. “Yes?”

The mage nodded, thoughtful like he was taking mental notes, grinning to himself a little in a way that didn’t help Callum feel better.

“Why? Are you conducting a survey or something?”

“In a sense,” was the reply. “I have known a few humans in my time, and I’d say it is an enriching experience.”

“Right,” Callum agreed, skeptical. His life had gotten better after he’d met Rayla. It was more dangerous, but he didn’t think he would have ever figured out his true calling without her. And he liked to think that maybe, he had helped her, too. “I mean, you’re not wrong.”

“Right,” again with the smiling. Callum returned it, a little uneasy, but he wasn’t sure anymore if it was because of the unusual appearance and the height, or if there was something to worry about for real. Their interaction so far had been a net positive, so maybe he was just being anti-elf.

“I’m going to need that back,” Callum gestured at the cube. He had been distracted enough by the turn their conversation took that he hadn’t registered that he hadn’t been handed the key back. “It’s like a family heirloom.”

“Passed down through the generations,” the elf guessed, holding the cube up, delicate in how he held it.

“Yeah, I guess,” Callum replied, reluctant, eyes going from the cube, to the elf’s face and back. It was a tense moment. He didn’t relax again until the cube was back in his bag.

They continued their aimless walk. Callum glanced up a couple times and was met with a smile. It was the same eerie one each time. He needed to get out soon.

After a couple more weird exchanges of looks, he decided to just go with his first idea and do the spell again. He took a breath and concentrated.

Before he started to draw the rune, he heard, “Stop.”

It startled him enough that he obeyed right away. “What, why?”

“As amusing as watching you attempt that would be,” the elf spoke. He looked down at Callum, which was super easy for him to do. “I have decided to offer you my assistance.”

Taken aback, all Callum could say was, “Uh, okay?”

The strange elf grinned, placing a hand on his chest in a self-important gesture. “I am a powerful mage, after all.”

It clicked. Callum pointed, accusing, “It’s your cube! You’re,” he couldn’t get it out on the first try, too shocked. “You’re Aaravos!”

“Guilty as charged,” Aaravos grinned. “Now child, you shouldn’t stay here any longer.”

“Why?” In the light of this new knowledge, the whole interaction just felt even more weird.

“This is an in-between place,” Aaravos gave his shoddy explanation.

“And that means,” Callum trailed off. He had his own suspicions.

“That you better hope your body is in safe hands.”

It was, Rayla must have noticed something was up by now. She’d have his back. “I’m just passed out somewhere? Again?”

Aaravos looked like he wanted to ask, but decided against it with a somewhat disapproving head shake. Callum could practically hear the “Why are you like this?” directed at his entire species. “To my knowledge, yes,” was what Aaravos said out loud. He reached out to poke Callum on the forehead. His hand went right through.

“I’m a ghost!” Callum jumped back, alarmed.

“That is not accurate.”

“How do I stop?!” Panic was setting in.

“You calm down and let me help you.”

“Okay, I’ll just do that!” It hadn’t really occurred to him before just how serious this whole thing was. Could he die? Was he dead? “Hey, how come you could touch the cube and not me?”

“That is strange, isn’t it,” Aaravos didn’t answer the question “Are you calm? Good. Bye.”

A sudden movement. Their white surroundings faded to black and the next thing he knew, he was staring up at a pissed off Rayla.

“What did you do this time?” she asked. “You were out cold!”

“Sorry,” he said. Apart from a minor headache and major confusion, he felt fine. “I thought I had it.”

She looked unimpressed. “I’ve heard that one before, usually after you’ve done something dumb.”

“Yeah, well, at least I wasn’t actively dying this time, right?” he argued, sitting up.

“I don’t think so, you were just lying there when I got back, and you were breathing, I give you that.” Despite her harsh words, her eyebrows were knitted together in worry.

“That’s definitely up there, on the list of weirdest things that have ever happened to me,” Callum told her, unsure of how to start unpacking what had happened.

“You’ve been passed out before a bunch of times,” Rayla teased but her hand still went to his forehead, to brush away the hair.

“Not what I meant.” Callum took her hand before digging through his bag for the key. When he found it, it flashed once and then settled down. Rayla might not believe him, he barely believed himself. The memory of the event was faint by the time he tried to tell her.


End file.
